Since the Save Our Sucklers campaign started eight weeks ago, we have received enormous support from farmers across all sectors. Rural businesses, vets, accountants, machinery dealers, livestock marts, AI companies, co-ops, feed companies, breed societies and many more have all rowed in behind the campaign and gave it their full support. The campaign has highlighted the unique threats that lie ahead for the Irish beef industry and what needs to happen to protect Irish farmers. It has four key strands and is calling for:

  • A fully funded CAP with the commitment to introduce targeted support measures for all low income sectors including suckling.
  • Protect EU and Irish suckler farmers in all upcoming trade deals.
  • Safeguard farmers’ incomes in the face of Brexit.
  • To support the campaign for the introduction of a suckler cow support payment of €200/cow to underpin the sector and halt rural decline.
  • We have currently more than 17,000 paper signatures and just over 18,000 online signatures, more than 35,000 signatures in total. The target is to get this over 40,000 by the end of the campaign in the coming days. We are calling on farmers, and anybody who depends on a farmer, to sign the petition either online or in this week’s paper.

    Events

    More than 3,000 people have attended our events held in conjunction with the IFA over the past eight weeks. All events were very well attended and farmers got a chance to speak with Irish Farmers Journal specialists, ICBF, Teagasc, IFA, vets and AI companies. While policy changes where called for at all of these events, farmers were also told how technical efficiency must improve in tandem with more supports.

    Areas such as breeding efficiency, grassland management and nutrition were all profiled as areas where improvement was needed on suckler beef farms.

    EU supports

    Just before Christmas, an Irish Farmers Journal investigation highlighted the fact that supports in the suckler sector have dropped by €177/cow over the past 10 years. This has been due to a combination of cuts to the Basic Payment Scheme, ANC cuts and environmental scheme cuts. It has placed a huge financial burden on suckler farmers who were already operating on very tight margins. During the campaign, Phelim O Neill highlighted that many EU countries currently have a coupled payment in place and highlighted France as an example where there is currently a suckler cow support payment of €178/cow.

    The next steps

    Once all petitions have been submitted to the Irish Farmers Journal, we will complete our final count and the next job will be to arrange to present the petitions to both the Irish Government and the European Commission in Brussels.

    While this will see the end to the petition campaign, the Irish Farmers Journal will continue to press for the support that is needed for the suckler sector and also other low-income sectors that require support.

    Posting back petitions

    Petitions are located in hundreds of locations around the country and we are asking everybody with completed petitions to send them back to SOS Campaign, Irish Farm Centre, Bluebell, Dublin 12 in the coming days.

    People can also login to www.farmersjournal.ie/SOS and sign online before the campaign closes next week.

    Dail motion

    Fianna Fáil agriculture spokesperson Charlie McConalogue brought a motion to the Dail on 21 February asking Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed to look at unspent monies in the Rural Development Programme and if some of this money could be redirected towards a suckler cow support payment.

    The motion was accepted by the Government and Minister Creed is due before the Dáil in the next two to three weeks to report on his Department’s findings.

    Quotes

    "Farmers and everybody in rural Ireland needs to get behind this campaign and show their support by putting their name on the line in the coming days” –Adam Woods, beef editor, Irish Farmers Journal.

    "It was very clear that if the Minister for Agriculture had not accepted the Dáil motion put forward by Charlie McConalogue, he was facing another defeat for the Government. Over 30 TDs spoke in support of the motion that night in the Dáil. – Angus Woods, IFA livestock chair.

    "An analysis carried out by UCD on behalf of the IFA reinforces the role of the suckler cow as a wealth creator, showing that every €1 of support provided to suckler farmers generated over €4 of economic activity in rural towns and villages. – Justin McCarthy, editor, Irish Farmers Journal.